Hanne Yager, a policy planner for Oxford County, discussed proposed updates to the implementation policies of the County’s Official Plan with Township of Blandford-Blenheim Council during their meeting on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.
Yager told Council that County staff are looking to amend its implementation policies to conform with recently updated legislation, to provide opportunities to streamline review procedures and to add clarity for the County’s existing processes.
Yager said the proposed changes are broken into three themes; opportunities to improve the development process, minor updates to add clarity and transparency and requirements and processes for major projects and studies.
Under the opportunities to improve the development process, the planner spoke about the potential to implement the following tools including the delegation of planning approval to staff to help reduce Council time and resources; using alternative measures of public notice to help address newspaper unavailability, inclement weather and postal strikes; and waving the requirements for public meetings when zoning by-law amendments where little to no public feedback is received.
Yager said the three above tools can also be used together for some types of development applications.
The policy planner also added that other tools that could be used to improve the development process include complete application requirements, allocation of servicing capacity (for water and wastewater), and a Community Planning Permit System (CPPS) that offers a modernized framework for land-use planning.
“A CPPS essentially combines multiple planning applications into a single planning permit that has a 45 day approval deadline,” explained Yager. “In short, the tool has pros and cons; it could be difficult for municipal municipalities to implement, but it can also help incentivize different types of development that may meet a municipality’s strategic objectives or goals, and has been used for things like affordable housing or urban design. This is currently as proposed, an informative policy, because this type of tool works best by being carefully scoped and designed, so that would mean further background studies, Official Plan policy changes, and a CPPS by-law being passed.”
Yager explained that all of the above tools are all optional, and many of the draft Official Plan updates, once in effect, have to have a by-law passed.
Moving to minor updates to improve clarity, Yager said that the proposed changes will clarify existing powers, and improve existing evaluation criteria.
“These policies will either state existing processes, such as when planning approvals lapse, or different types of applications can occur under the Planning Act that municipalities can consider, or just small adjustments to existing criteria,” she said. “The intent of these changes is just to clarify for users of the Official Plan our existing practices and requirements. These amendments don’t contemplate new tools or accommodate new legislative changes, they’re really just intended to be minor and informative in nature.”
When it comes to the requirements and processes for major studies and projects, Yager said they’re looking to make certain amendments to bring them inline with the 2024 Provincial Planning Statements and the Planning Act.
“These proposed amendments achieve two key things; they reflect the new Provincial Planning Statement and Planning Act changes regarding settlement area boundary expansions, and they aim to update policies to reflect county and local municipal practices used for those expansions,” explained Yager. In short, the intent of these changes is to keep our tools up to date and reflect what we already do so well, so that when municipalities approach, the when and the where ,growth can happen, and the how is easier to navigate.”
As far as next steps, Yager said the County is working on visiting area municipal councils to inform them of changes and receive feedback, preparing a recommended OP amendment and circulating it per Panning Act requirements, and will present a recommendation report and the OP amendment to County Council, with a public meeting and decision happening in the first quarter of 2026.
Later, Councillor Bruce Banbury said that while he was in favour of delegating planning approval, he wondered how the appeal process may take place if staff were to turn down a project.
“This could potentially only expand the ability for approval,” responded Yager. “So if a planner or a member of staff was to recommend refusal, then it would just automatically go through the Council review process that happens today.”
The presentation and information was later received as information.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
